This photo of Mars was taken by the Mars rover Curiosity's left camera B at 01:09:46 UTC on December 8, otherwise known as 8:09 PM Eastern US/5:09 Pacific on December 7. It's a literal snapshot of the surface of Mars as it appeared only hours ago.

Here's what it looked like from right camera B, about 30 seconds earlier:

You can see more of what Curiosity saw today here, while you're marveling at the fact that we're seeing shots of Mars, taken by our robot, sent to us the day they were taken.